Biology - Post GCSE

Y11 Post GCSE Activity

Watch the video above and consider

1. Why is it really difficult to obtain a viable mammoth cell, to obtain DNA from?

2. What is the difference between embryo splitting, and adult cell cloning?

3. How can we repair the mammoth DNA to make it viable to implant?

4. Is this process ethical in the UK? (you may need to look up the definition of ethics)

5. What happened to the South Korean Dr named in the video - look him up! - What do you think?

6. Discussion topic - If there was a woolly mammoth at London Zoo, contained in an appropriate space cooled to the appropriate temperature, would you go and see it? How much would you pay? Should we try to resurrect more extinct species?

There are a number of tasks that you can do in order to get your level of understanding up to where it should be for starting the OCR A-level course at Kings. Obviously your understanding of Biology should be to Grade 7 or above, but really we need to lift your comprehension a bit more than that, to help you engage with the material in Y12. You should start by re-capping the GCSE course in full which is actually best described on the BBC Bitesize website. Its actually better than lots of textbooks!

Topics that you should have a particularly strong grasp of:

• Cell Structure & Specialisation

• Cell Division

• Respiration & Using Living Organisms (Enzymes)

• Photosynthesis

• Inheritance

• Transport (Across Membranes)

• Plant & Animal Transport Systems

About the A-Level Course

The A-Level course is OCR Specification A, a copy of which can be downloaded here.

It is taught by Miss Chantrell (Head of Department) Mr Rhodes, Mr Dunn & Mrs Blakeley.

Task

In addition to going through your GCSE notes, we have put together a short study task for you to evaluate over the Summer Holiday. The point of this is twofold. The first is to get you thinking about Biology, perhaps more synoptically, and to give you a flavour of some of the concepts and ideas that we look at in the A-level course. Many of these are a development of the GCSE work